


left my heart in rocky hill

by daeniera



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cigarettes, Drug Addiction, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, University, big trigger warnings here, yes i wrote this instead of sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daeniera/pseuds/daeniera
Summary: "He played the game of gambling his own life away, bit by bit, until the moment he knew that he had ventured too far and too deep."It's times like these, at four in the morning, that Nico knows he should quit. Stop smoking, quit the dangerous habit that seems to be tearing his mind further apart than he has realised.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	left my heart in rocky hill

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY lol,,,, first work posted on ao3 !!! 
> 
> title is from using by sorority noise. i basically based the whole short fic on this song. most of the writing is from pretty personal experiences and so on!! i did write this with the pure intention to get some steam off, so i hope my first published fic on here is pretty swaggy . 
> 
> thank u ♡(ᐢ ᴥ ᐢし)  
> paige

Four fifty-nine in the morning and all he can think of is how long this will last. From his disoriented eight-grader mathematician brain, Nico knows that every single drag of his cigarettes lasts him thirty seconds of numbness. The only type of numbness he can explain logically, backed up by numerous counts of scientific evidence. Cigarettes are like pure bliss- like sunday morning piled under suffocating blankets- heavy, crushing his whole body, leaving him nothing to think of. His mind is too preoccupied with the chemicals to process all of his constant worries of the day incoming. 

He doesn’t want to label it. He frowns at Will when he pulls out website after website, talking about the dangers of Marlboro and every type of lung cancer he could possibly get. He sneers when Jason tells him that he is fighting one of the deadliest monsters to exist in his mind. Addiction. Addicts. Addicted. He refuses to label his needs, he refuses to categorise himself into a stereotypical box where people are seen laying on their deathbeds, where black bolded ‘SMOKING LEADS TO DEATH’ signs viciously at him, where emotional scenes are played out on a tiny screen of people injecting heroin into themselves.

At least it’s just cigarettes. Not heroin, not methamphetamine, not ecstasy. Not a big labelled drug, not a bold sign that screams ‘I’m giving my life away and I don’t give less than two shits’. Nico knows he should stop, he will stop after he finishes this pack. But everytime he exhales and the nicotine hits his brain, every time his whole body goes numb and the tip of his fingers and toes start feeling like a fizzy seltzer, he knows he won’t. It feels like driving home silently at three in the morning, or watching scenery pass by on a fast train. The silence, the emptiness in his mind allows him to stop worrying. To stop thinking about the dangers, the consequences, the future. 

“I thought you said you were quitting.” a sharp voice behind him startles Nico, as he turns around to face his boyfriend, skin softly lit by the small lamps hanging on their balcony, messy bed hair, eyes soft and unfocused. Will’s lips are tilted slightly by a frown, as he grabs the box of unfinished cigarettes by the small plastic chair. His face is slightly wrinkled by the frown he’s currently showing, a soft sigh parting his lips as he pockets the cigarettes into his hoodie. 

“I am- I’m just fucking stressed out. I have a stupid novel to finish analysing so Professor Chiron can finally get his head out my ass.” Nico muttered, his mind sneering at the horrible lie he just made. Both him and Will knew that Nico was doing tremendously well in his lit classes, receiving praise after praise from the professor himself. Nico knew he fucked up, big time. He had promised Will after last week’s argument that he would try and start quitting, even if they were just empty white lies, woven from his anxiety and everyone around him pressing onto his health.

“Stop fucking around, Nico. Addiction is-” 

“Addiction is a disease that affects your brain and behavior. When you’re addicted to drugs, you can’t resist the urge to use them, no matter how much harm the drugs may cause. You’ve repeated that to me four times this month, doctor. I know.” Nico retorted- he knew sarcastically using Will’s profession as an argument would not likely end well, but he didn’t care. He wanted more, he wanted every single cigarette to not be his last, hell, he wanted to stay in the mindset of being so fucking numb he couldn’t feel anything anymore. He presses his last cigarette onto the plastic rail- the countless burn marks on the railing tell him how many times he has betrayed and ruined Will’s trust.

“Nico, I don’t think you understand how dangerous this is. You’re throwing away your body, your health, your mindset. Nicotine isn’t something that you can rely on for your mental health, it isn’t worth getting lung cancer for your mind to feel at ease.” Will starts, sitting down on the cold floor of the balcony and facing him. “Talk to me, sunshine. What’s on your mind these days?”

Nico’s mind is blank. He doesn’t know what to say, where to begin, where to end. His mind was beginning to sew back details and memories and events that he desperately tried to forget. Bile begins to rise at the back of his throat, his heart begins to thrum louder in his chest. Nico’s at a loss for words- thoughts mumbled and jumbled into the back of his brain. It feels like a blind force on his throat and his chest- constricting tightly, pressing his organs into one whole meat pile. He claws desperately at his wrists, nails pinching and leaving small marks all over. His eyes start blinking rapidly, panic seizing into his mind at a rapid pace. He feels like he just toppled off a roof, free falling- except it’s the type of fall that hurls you at a thousand miles per hour and the ground looks closer every second.

“It’s nearing december, and-” Nico starts, his hands unconsciously rubbing at his wrists. “I don’t know, Will. I really don’t know why I can’t quit. One hit, two hits, three hits, when will this end? When will my body stop functioning, and become a living corpse? I don't remember the first day I picked a cigarette up. I don't remember the first day I picked cutting up. I don't remember anything.” It was too late to stop now, too late to press rewind and hope that his boyfriend would forget everything he was saying. His relationship with smoking was too complicated, too hard to understand. He hated this. The nicotine in his system, eyes dazed and unfocused, screaming and fretting over his health, it brought him back painful memories he tried to forget. 

And yet he loved it. It was a siren, luring him, dragging him to the deep ends of the murky water. So harming, yet so mystically wonderful. Everytime he heard the soft lullaby, he didn’t know when to stop listening, didn’t know when to stop looking into the siren’s voice like it depended on his whole life. How it tasted on his lips, how it beckoned him to dance the dance of a villain's tale. 

He played the game of gambling his own life away, bit by bit, until the moment he knew that he had ventured too far and too deep. He remembered the death of his sister way too clearly. Bright flashing lights, loud blasting sirens, screams and cries for help as his sister succumbed after a long battle with cancer. It was purely ironic how his sister, innocent, naive, loving Bianca, had lost a battle that he was currently wanting to face. 

Sure, when his mother screamed at him when she found his first pack of cigarettes and begged him to stop, to lay out all the reasons why he had to smell like a ‘rebellious, family-hating, shameful’ teenager, all he could do was bite his tongue and silently count the minutes remaining of his mother’s wretched cries and screams, and he could continue his daily pattern of smoking thrice, showering twice, eating once, and sleeping no hours, lying awake in his bed, counting the black dots and white sparks he saw flash in his vision, and he knew, he was a dead man walking. Spending the remaining of his hours smoking, crying over his appearance, and controlling and leaning on herself.

It was an ironic life sentence he decided to carry out, merely tradition for him to continue smoking. His grandfathers died from it, Bianca had died from it, his father was going to die from it, and what better gift to give to his family than the legacy of smoking a bloody cigarette? To continue down this path with no remorse? 

“....We design our own futures, Di Angelo. We write our legacies with pen and paper, we create the world that we would be living in tomorrow.’’ Nico didn’t even notice that Will was speaking against the back of his throat, the latter’s arms wrapped around him tightly.

“Metamorphosis. The caterpillar blossoming into a graceful elegant butterfly. The caterpillar had to hide, had to shed his skin, and transformed into a pretty handsome butterfly. You, my dear, are the caterpillar. You are undergoing metamorphosis, you are going to change into a better person. You will fight this and you will blossom into something beautiful, something better for yourself.” Will continued, murmuring softly. “You are battling something, Niccolò Di Angelo, whether you’d like to hear it or not. It is a tough hill to run up, a lengthy marathon to complete, but you will do it for your future.” 

Nico was so sure that he must have saved a city from collapsing in his last life to deserve Will. William Andrew Solace, the human version of sunrises on a spring morning, golden haired with soft blue eyes, calm like the river, a firm presence in his life. Will, the boy who offered Nico a half of his sandwich when they were ten. Will, the friend who would send cat emoticons after every text message as an annoying way to cheer Nico up. Will, the boyfriend who would spend nights with his arms tightly wrapped around Nico during horror movies, as if he was protecting him. Will knew how to deal with situations like this, situations where Nico felt like the world was ripping apart at its seams, unravelling thread by thread. 

“We will go through this together. We will fight this together. Someday, we will look back on these times together, and we will smile at the long journey we have gone through, reminiscing the painful times that we shared.” Will removed Nico’s hands from painfully rubbing at his wrists, and laced his own fingers with Nico's. 

“You do realise- you’re gonna have to deal with me being absolutely cranky?” Nico muttered, his worries only increasing. What if Will got tired of his battle, what if he left one night and nico no longer had anyone to depend on anymore? 

“Sunshine, I deal with you being cranky every morning. It’s nothing to me, especially if I’m looking after the one I love so fucking much.” Will laughed softly. “My only goal is to see you happy and healthy, and I don’t give any fucks towards how long this will take.” 

Nico knew then that he had someone who would at least go through this experience with him. Hold his hair when he hurled into toilets at five in the morning, stroke his back when he got annoyed at minor details, kiss him when he felt like the world was tearing beneath him. And Nico knew, he had to at least try. For the man he loved so much, for the man he would spend every waking moment with until the day he died. He laid silently in his lover’s embrace, listening to Will softly hum some Hozier song as his eyes closed slightly, feeling the faint November morning breeze on his face, hearing the birds chirp quietly as they woke up.

And the following morning, when Nico watched as a smile broke upon Will’s tired face, while he signed up to a support group, he knew he was going to beat the shit out of this demon. The journey would be fucking horrible and a bitch to face, but he knew, with Will on his side, he had all the energy and support he needed to face this addiction.

**Author's Note:**

> :] leave constructive criticism if u wanna !! help a gal out <3


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